


A Well-Made Mistake

by easilydistractedbyfanfic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Boy do I have some ideas about that, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Cussing, Episode Fix-it, Episode Related, F/M, Found Family Feels, Gen, I tag everything Murven that's just how it is in my head, Murphy-centric, Spacekru Family Dynamics, Spoilers through 7x09, What was Murphy thinking this episode?, i got mad at canon, implied john murphy/emori, pre John Murphy/Raven Reyes - Freeform, so I wrote this to explain a bunch of plot holes that were driving me crazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25353373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easilydistractedbyfanfic/pseuds/easilydistractedbyfanfic
Summary: What was going through Murphy's mind in 7x09? Why did he go to the bar after that chess match with Russ-heda and not straight to the castle party? What did he think when Indra told him that his friends were all missing? And is it possible that he's got some lingering guilt over what happened to Hatch and how he treated Raven during that radiation disaster? Will that come into play when he deals with Nikki's demands?FYI - I tagged this implied Murven in the ship field, but the only real character in this story is MURPHY and his rambling thoughts.
Relationships: John Murphy/Raven Reyes (implied)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	A Well-Made Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm meant to be working on more fic prompts for the fantastic BLM Initiative, and I still am working hard at those, I promise. But 7x09 got my gears going, and then I tied it in to a bit of plot from earlier this season that I'm still dissatisfied with, and I knocked this out rather quickly because I guess that's what spite-writing will do for you! Ha! Also I was too annoyed to go back and rewatch the episodes I'm referencing, so please excuse any mistakes on my part if I get a detail wrong. 
> 
> For what it's worth, I think there's some possible callbacks to the s4 fight between Raven & Murphy that I sort of play on in this story, but I don't know if canon was attempting to do that with their radiation scenes.

* * *

I'm gonna fuck it up again

I'm gonna do another detour

Unpave my path

And if you wanna make sense

Whatcha looking at me for

I'm no good at math

And when I find my way back,

The fact is I just may stay, or I may not

I've acquired quite a taste

For a well-made mistake

~ A Mistake, Fiona Apple

  
  


It was a mistake not to head straight to the damned castle, he knows that now. Just like he knows a lot of things with the cursed magic of hindsight - all the unlearned lessons cycling through his head on repeat as he waits for Indra to pull together the plan and the people they need for what they’re going to do about Nikki and the hostages she’s taken. 

He wants another drink, but that’s part of what got him into this mess in the first place. After he’d literally pulled himself from the clutches of Sheidheda or Russell Prime or whoever the hell he wanted to be called lately, he’d been shaken, angry with himself for falling for the distraction of the chess game. He’d needed a drink to calm down, maybe even to think, and if he knew anything at all about this fucking _moon_ they were on, he knew where to find the alcohol. 

Jackson had been sitting at the bar too, and for once his presence hadn’t deterred him. There’s still some lingering resentment there, and not exactly unearned on his part; he can admit that even as the knowledge of it eats at him. They sat in silence, the two of them, and Murphy had tried to ignore everything except for the burn of the liquid he sipped. He’d barely finished his second pour before Nikki’s voice on the loudspeaker had interrupted his misery, alerting him that once again he’d fucked up and made the wrong choice. He should have gone straight to Emori, even if he hadn’t actually believed that Russ-heda could have pulled off a coup from that tiny jail cell. It wasn’t a good excuse, obviously, but the concept of a party felt wrong to him on so many levels, and he thought Emori’s overtures to reunite birth parents with the so-called Nulls was a terrible, awful idea especially so close to the burning of the castle and the horrors of the almost-radiation disaster. But there was no changing her mind. And not only did he not want to present himself as Daniel Prime in the process, but he hadn’t felt like dealing with her anticipated anger over his late arrival either. 

So yeah, enter the bad decision making. Actually, scratch that. He’d been making bad decisions all morning, starting with waking up and getting out of bed. Or maybe he should take it back even farther than that, to the poor choice of letting Raven leave the infirmary by herself when he knew she was in bad shape, and that some of it was his own doing. He knew her, knew she’d go back to the reactor, both to make sure everything was still as stable as it was supposed to be _and_ to emotionally fucking torture herself with more guilt. But he hadn’t moved, hadn’t made any effort to deter her. Another bad decision on his list. 

Although hell, if he’s being honest with himself might as well trace it back to Josie and her damning offer of immortality to begin with. He’s enough of a pragmatist to let himself off the hook for accepting the first time - it wasn’t like there was much choice, and he not only thought Clarke was truly gone but he’d seen it as the best option for keeping the rest of them alive. That second time though....When he’d known Clarke still existed in the mind drive somehow, that maybe there could have been a way to get her back… He’d pushed ahead with the plan even though he had experienced a few doubts. Yeah, that’s definitely what doomed him. Murphy could trust his instincts but he couldn’t trust his conscience. He’d gotten too used to ignoring it. 

It wasn’t just Murphy being selfish that second time around, not that anyone would believe it. But he _was_ thinking about Emori too, and the rest of his friends. The mind drive felt like some kind of sign, an ideal solution to his fears about going to hell. There’s no denying that was a part of it and he doesn’t even want to pretend it wasn't a priority. He wanted to believe, both that the mind drive would save him from damnation and also that the deal with Josephine and Russell Prime would save the rest of their people, the people that were important to him. And maybe, if it all happened like it was supposed to, maybe for a change he would be both the hero that Bellamy accused him of wanting to be, and maybe he could also live up to Monty’s advice of doing better. 

Of course it had all gone to shit. 

What was that saying? _The road to hell is paved with good intentions_ \- yep, that’s the one. Fuck if that wasn’t the motto of his life, he wasn’t sure what was. The decision had alienated him from his friends, turned Emori against him for a time, almost gotten them all burned at the stake, gotten Abby killed… the list goes on. At least Raven hadn’t held the first choice against him, making the attempt to understand where he was coming from. He hadn’t even bothered to talk to her about Harper or Monty or even Shaw being dead, and still she’d been much kinder to him than she should have been. He didn’t understand it, didn’t deserve it, least of all from _her_. And yet, he’d started to expect it anyway over their years together, that she would try to figure him out, try to get inside his head. She was pretty good at it, too. And he’d definitely come to expect that whatever it was that he did, she’d ultimately forgive him, because that’s just how their relationship seemed to work, even if it never made any sense to him. 

Maybe he’s ruined that too, now. She was upset about Abby, of course she was, but she hadn’t seemed to blame him even though she should have looked at him with disgust just like Jackson did. For fuck's sake, Abby had died in front of her. Just like Sinclair. Just like Finn. And it was his fault; he’d caused that to happen. But both her and Clarke weren’t as angry as Jackson - at least they didn’t seem to be, and if nothing else, Raven was always honest with him. Brutally so, sometimes. She wouldn’t lie to him about Abby, he could trust that. He would trust that.

But then the radiation leak had happened. And he had been so _angry_ with himself, knowing that if he hadn’t gone along with Josie and Russell and their stupid fucking deal, he and Emori would never have had nightblood, and Emori wouldn’t have had to go into that chamber and Raven wouldn’t have had to ask her to and yeah, maybe other people would have died because of it but guess what, he was bastard enough to be alright with that, all things considered. That wasn’t how it went down, though. No, Raven hadn’t found anyone willing to help even though the entire fucking population was about to blow up, so she'd fibbed to the miners to get their cooperation. Maybe he didn’t know all the details at the time, but she’d said it herself - she didn’t expect the radiation to be that bad, thought it would only make them sick, and by the time she figured out that it was so much worse, it was too late for Hatch and the other miners who had agreed to help. 

That was another thing that made him angry. Furious, really, that he hadn’t been capable enough to do the work himself like Emori did, how she’d unstuck the reactor or whatever the fancy term was for what she’d done. Meanwhile, him? Useless. Like always. 

Raven had been right - he’d made himself into a Prime, taken the nightblood by choice, and it was time he started acting like one. But he hadn’t legitimately helped any of them, instead on edge and lashing out at Raven to release some of his frustration, as if she wasn’t being the fucking savior of them all like always, accusing her of being the one who should have gone into the room to weld the pipes. He wasn’t thinking, not at all - that was so often his problem - and it was written all over her face that he’d hurt her when she was probably even more stressed out than he was. And then she pulled exactly the same move he always resorted to when backed up against a wall, which was to hide all her emotions except for rage and strike back, this time with him as the target. Fuck if she didn’t hit a bullseye too, locking him in that fucking room like she couldn’t trust him to help, her words stabbing into him and designed to make him bleed just like he’d done to her. 

It made them even, sort of, although he never should have started it in the first place. But then as usual he’d let his _feelings_ get the best of him and he’d gone and made it _so much worse_. 

After it was done he was sick. From the radiation, from Hatch dying, from Hatch’s comments about love and not being able to make up for your sins, from what he’d said to Raven and what she’d said to him in return, from concern about Emori, his own uselessness, the possibility of everybody dying, all of it, everything. And then she’d come in, the woman Hatch had loved, with all her righteous fury. It happened so fast and his reactions were too slow and Raven suffered for it, letting Nikki hit her over and over again because she thought she deserved it all until he and Emori managed to intervene and the two women were separated. 

The sight of her battered face after was bad enough, cut and bloody and sure to bruise, but more than anything else it was the look in her eyes and the way she jerked herself away from the hands that only wanted to assist her that had done it. It took so much to push her into it, but he was no stranger to knowing what it looked like, even if he hated to remember the times that he’d seen it firsthand. Raven had broken, the tight control she so often wielded had shattered to the point of non-existence, and he had helped her get there this time in more ways than one.

His feelings, her feelings, the brutal combination was too much, pushed him close to his own limits and his fucking temper, that nasty voice inside him that was full of pain, hate and envy, it took over again in that moment, had him metaphorically kicking her while she was down as he so sarcastically welcomed her to the world of gray - instead of offering her the kindness and understanding he knew she deserved. That she so often showed _him_. 

He’d been trying not to think about the entire clusterfuck ever since. How she’d looked so defeated, how agonizingly worse he’d felt after opening his mouth again. As if he wasn’t fully aware that Raven had lived in the murky gray world of morality for years now, hadn’t had a front row seat to it on plenty of occasions as a witness. Hell, he’d tried to _save her_ from it a few times, after seeing how devastated she was after trying to make the responsible, logical choice with the radiation medicine for the girl from Floukru, even with the hard time and guilt Abby had heaped on her for it. And then again on the Eligius IV when he’d told her he’d kill all those cryo-prisoners so she wouldn’t have to. Raven was so often the one who sacrificed for them all, and yeah, maybe he’d helped her out a time or two in the past, but this time… this time he’d helped to make it much crueler, because they were supposed to be friends. She was supposed to be able to count on him.

So when Indra came into the bar just after the announcement from Nikki, agitated at the current castle situation and reporting that she hadn’t found any of the people she’d gone looking for in the woods, only a bunch of bodies, he’d been stunned, barely able to react. At least on the outside. Inside it felt like a hundred doses from those shock collars they had been stuck in for too long, a horrible, chilling feeling coming over him at the realization that Bellamy, Echo, Jordan, Raven… all gone, missing, maybe worse. What remained of his family. Only he and Emori were left behind, and she was in danger too, counting on him to save her so he couldn’t do anything like race into the woods and see for himself what had happened, who the fuck these bodies were, and whether there were any signs his people were alive. 

And he knew, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that part of why Raven was now gone and who-knew-the-fuck-where was because he’d treated her like that, hadn’t followed her out of the infirmary to apologize like he should have and somehow convinced her that her guilt was misplaced. Was it just this morning, that he said it to Emori? That he wished he had gone with their friends into the woods. But Emori had said then that they could take care of themselves, and now Indra had said the same thing. What could he do but believe them? Because the alternative… 

No, he couldn’t tolerate thinking about any other outcome. They were with other people. Echo and Octavia could fight, Bellamy too. Probably Miller. He didn’t know about Gaia or Niylah. But Gabriel wasn’t bad, and he was smart like Raven. Shit, Clarke could talk her way out of most things, he knew that. But Jordan was practically a naive kid who had no life experience whatsoever, and they were meant to be looking out for him. Doing a rotten job of it, admittedly, but that kid needed watching. And right now, so did Raven, considering the emotional and physical state she was in. 

Murphy doesn’t mention any of these thoughts that speed through his head, only reassures Indra and Jackson that they’ll get Gaia and Miller back, but internally he’s reeling, feels almost dizzy with concern. He’s got to keep himself together, got to take it one step at a time and be more careful than he was with Josephine, as much as he knew she was out to trap him too. Nikki’s already a killer, Russ-heda too, and the involvement of the Children of Gabriel and the true believers in Sanctum only complicates things further. 

It all combines to make him more determined to bust into the castle and get this hostage situation taken care of as quickly as possible. He doesn’t have time for this place, hates it and the fake persona he’s supposed to portray as Daniel Prime, but he’s got to remember to trust his gut and listen when his ill-used conscience tries to tell him something too. He’d pushed aside his instincts when he played the chess game, had let Russ-heda’s words suck him in along with the hubris that he might be able to outplay him, and in the process he’d tried to be too logical about it. That was Raven’s domain, solving puzzles. The thought sends an ache to his chest, painfully tight, and he paces across the bar faster, finally looking up when Indra returns and tells him to come with her to get Russell Prime. 

* * *

Everything in the castle is a disaster, not that he really expects anything different. They had a secret way in, thanks to Russ-heda of all people, and Indra’s plan isn’t bad, but there’s still anxiety rising inside him that he has to squash down when he sees Emori with the gun pointed at her and hears the way Nikki is so obsessed with killing Raven. 

The lies come easy, like they always do, and he attempts to convince Nikki that Raven is on her way. She would have come, if she was anywhere nearby and had a clue what was going on. But even if she had been, Murphy wouldn’t have wanted her to know about this whole situation, wouldn’t have let Indra involve her. And not just because she was already feeling guilty and would have thrown herself into danger as some sort of misguided penance either, but because he was scared enough that Emori was in the castle - he couldn’t handle the added panic on Raven’s behalf too. A trigger-happy Nikki wasn’t anything to take lightly, and if they get out of this, they’re definitely going to have to do something about her. 

He doesn’t even have to think about it when he takes the blame for Hatch dying, and it doesn’t feel like a lie, not when it rolls off his tongue like second nature because he’d rather it be the truth anyway. If only he had the ability to say something like this when it counted, to the person it would have really mattered to. Of course that wasn’t his way, that wasn’t how he was built. Instead, his mouth was made for deceiving, full of falsehoods and what people wanted to believe, but sometimes… Sometimes he thought Raven might see the real truth in his eyes, had since the very beginning all those years ago in the Dropship. Still could - when she wasn’t dealing with the damage that he had dealt to her, at least. Now though, every time he thinks about how she didn’t even want to look at him while she huddled on the floor, shaking and bleeding, the awful things he’d said to her echoing between them, it just makes him sick. 

If something happens to her, if he never gets to apologize, to see her again-no, he can’t think about it. Not now, not ever. 

Fuck, where’s Indra? He just wants this over with, wants to lock up Nikki and Russ-heda once more and take back the guns and maybe try to talk some sense into these obsessed Prime worshippers so he can get out from underneath this damn bubble and find out what happened in the woods to his friends, his _family_. 

* * *

Not much surprises Murphy, not any more. But Indra leaving Russ-heda locked in with all the pissed-off true believers manages to do it. He stares at her, probably with a mixture of disbelief and bewilderment on his face, but she’s resolved over the decision, ordering the guards not to open the doors before she storms away. It’s not that he doesn’t trust her, not exactly. She just saved their asses, after all. But she had been wrong about wanting Madi to be the Commander, and maybe-

Emori interrupts his thoughts, urging him to come with her and get away before the mob turns on them too. She makes a good point, and it’s definitely the survivor’s move. And yet… and yet his instincts are telling him it’s all wrong so he lingers, not quite stepping away from the large doors as he watches the guards. Only a moment passes and he throws out what Emori thinks, what Indra has ordered - they’re _wrong_. His gut is right, like it so often is, and he begs the guards to open the doors, but his words fall on deaf ears. 

They hear it then, a few seconds after his outburst, the kinds of noises that don’t indicate anything good, and it gets worse, yells and screams clearly not from Russ-heda as Murphy demands to go inside, to stop what’s happening because it must have been Russ-heda’s plan all along. 

And in his trepidation, consumed by everything he’s been through in the last few hours - no the last days, weeks - he fucks it up even further, in spite of his good intentions. 

_Sheidheda_ , he says. _Sheidheda_. 

The guards perk up at the title, naturally they fucking do, and it feels like slow-motion as the doors swing open, the blood-soaked scene and pile of bodies inside worse than what he imagined. 

He’s not getting into the woods any time soon, he can feel that goal slipping through his fingers just like the faces of his friends flicker in front of his eyelids. Bellamy. Echo. Jordan. Clarke. Octavia. Even Gabriel, who he sort of likes. Gaia and Miller and Niylah, who he barely knows. And _Raven_. 

Raven. Raven, Raven, Raven. 

And it’s not a pleasant image of her either, of course it isn’t. Not her smug face when she made a joke at his expense, or the small grin she’d respond with when he’d said something sarcastic. Not the huge, blinding smile she had when she accomplished something or solved a problem that had been weighing on her. Not even the fond, affectionate expression she’d wear when she looked at him sometimes. Of course it’s not those. 

He gets the bloody cheek, the wounded and trembling body, the betrayed eyes. 

_The road to hell..._

**Author's Note:**

> I feel better now that I got that out. What do you think, would Murphy have been thinking these things or perhaps something entirely different? Either way, I needed to fill some of these gaps. Thanks for reading!


End file.
